MG Motor ZS review

MG Motor's compact SUV takes the fight to hybrid rivals on performance, value and space

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Having surfed the growth wave of interest in electric cars at the beginning of this decade, MG has now hedged its bets rather cleverly as private buyers have checked their enthusiasm for zero-emissions cars. The company’s success is now being propelled, believe it or not, by a second, fresh wave of EV scepticism.

This year MG has replaced the aged MG 3 supermini with a hybrid successor, has introduced a long-range, extra-attractive PHEV version of the MG HS family SUV and is now betting on full-hybrid power yet again for its replacement of the smaller MG ZS small SUV. 

The ZS’s electric sibling will remain on sale in last-gen form until the end of 2024 but won’t be directly replaced. A new electric-only compact SUV – related to the MG 4 – will succeed it in 2025.
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

In each case, it’s offering customers a very attractively priced car with some of the key strengths of a fully electrified option, but without the need to pay full-ticket EV prices or to necessarily worry about charging or reinventing their motoring habits. It’s been a powerful strategy and could yet make MG become one of the UK’s bestselling car brands for 2024.

This new MG ZS Hybrid+, it expects, should be second only to the HS among its biggest-selling cars once the final tally is done for 2025.

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DESIGN & STYLING

MG ZS panning

This car is a close match for the old ZS on width and height but is 100mm longer and now arguably bridges the B- and C-SUV segments for size and practicality - boosting MG’s usual metal-for-the-money argument.

Closely related to the MG 3 supermini, it uses a near-identical hybrid powertrain, which combines a 101bhp 1.5-litre normally aspirated petrol engine with a 134bhp electric drive motor and a less powerful starter-generator motor, all corralled through a three-speed automatic transmission. Just as in the MG 3, peak system power is claimed to be 195bhp, though the ZS’s system somehow combines to make a little more ‘system’ torque (343lb ft) than its sibling car.

That’s enough to make for relatively spritely performance. While most HEV rivals (Toyota Yaris Cross, Renault Captur, Kia Niro) need around 11sec for 0-62mph, the new ZS manages it in less than nine.

And all this, your MG salesperson would point out, from a car priced more like a regular supermini than a compact crossover SUV. This car is certainly conspicuously good value, both at list price and via MG’s manufacturer finance. But does it look, feel or drive so cheaply? In many cases, no; in some, yes, a little, though perhaps not enough to put too many buyers off.

INTERIOR

MG ZS dash

The MG ZS's cabin is predictably roomy by class standards. Taller adults could be comfy enough in the second row - although they might well be less than ideally comfy up front because the front seats are a little too short and flat in the cushion to be ideally comfortable and lack some adjustment options (there no telescopic reach on the steering column, either). 

MG is getting more practised at material cabin specification and much of the ZS’s driving environment looks and feels comparable with the European brands for perceived quality. In some of the haptic feel of the secondary controls, though, it betrays a little bit of a low-rent feel; a slightly wobbly 'wing-like' drive selector lever is a case in point. The imitation-leather mouldings of the car’s upper dashboard and door cards, meanwhile, don't look or feel anything like what they're aiming for. 

The digital instruments are a bit annoying for having notably more video-game graphical style than clarity. The infotainment system also takes quite a bit of jabbing and swiping to penetrate, and offers only wired smartphone mirroring – but given how poor the fitted navigation system is, something’s a lot better than nothing on that score. There is a row of shortcut keys across its base for some functions, but they don't actually add much to system usability, while the screen's nav bar icons are displayed at a slightly small and fiddly scale and there aren't enough shortcuts to put elsewhere.

Getting access to the car's MG Pilot advanced driver assistance systems means you have to dive three screens in from the top layer, and then scroll to find the particular systems you want to activate or disable. And although MG offers two driver-selectable shortcut keys on the steering wheel, neither can be set to shorten this process.

With those few exceptions, however, this interior still doesn’t let the ZS down. It's practical and accommodating, and fairly well furnished and finished for the money being asked.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

MG ZS rear tracking

On the road, the MG ZS's responsive hybrid powertrain earns its points. Plenty of electric torque allows the combustion engine to stay shut down for much longer than many HEV rivals manage and makes good on MG’s claims of a particular EV-like quality to lower-speed motoring. You don’t need to rouse the reciprocating pistons to get the ZS up to speed smartly, while adjustable energy regeneration and a fairly progressive brake pedal make smooth, efficient progress easy (think 55mpg on a mixed route).

More broadly, the ZS driving experience lacks some refinement, civility and dynamic sophistication – not enough to breach the boundaries of the acceptable but enough, certainly, to notice the deficit compared with many rivals.

A slightly heavy, leaden-feeling steering system makes guiding the car less easy than it ought to be and sets the tone for handling that is secure and precise enough at town speeds but that begins to run out of body control when the road surface gets uneven.

The ZS’s ride can feel overly firm and fidgety at times, and yet a little soft and unruly at other times. But there is a slight woodenness to it that is a constant factor and makes for plenty of road noise and coarseness over rougher asphalt. The car seldom quite settles down on country roads, finding a way to be upset by varying ride frequency inputs. It's smoother on dual carriageways and deals with well-paved town roads decently well, but rough surfaces always make it come up short for vibration isolation.

That hybrid transmission might give halfway-spirited objective acceleration, meanwhile, but it doesn’t take to hard work quietly or smoothly, the combustion engine proving noisy and a little clunky when you ask for full power. You can blame the three-speed auto for that. Thankfully, you don’t often need full power to make decently swift progress in this car. It has an accessible sense of oomph that many HEVs lack – and that might be its best dynamic asset.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

MG ZS front tracking

Starting from less than £22,000, the MG ZS's prices really do stand out in a class where hybrid rivals typically cost much closer to £30k. MG expects 80% of buyers to go for a higher-equipped Trophy model, which will still cost them less than £25k yet give them an equipment level that rivals would run beyond £30,000 to match.

Manufacturer monthly finance can put the car within reach for less than £350 a month on a typical three-year term – 30% to 40% less than you might pay elsewhere.

Being very much a retail buyer's choice, it's unlikely to appeal to fleet users like an EV or PHEV might, but the real-world 55mpg that's easily achievable is solid, if unremarkable, fuel economy in 2024.

VERDICT

MG ZS front static

As a rational prospect, the MG ZS is now a car with clear and undeniable selling points. But despite the best efforts of its hybrid system, the driving experience isn’t really one of them – and it would be a much easier car to recommend if it was only a bit more pleasant to rub along with.

It is certainly a lot of car for not a lot of money and entirely undemanding to use. Practicality levels are comparable with C-segment SUVs (Nissan Qashqai, Kia Sportage, Peugeot 3008) of a generation or two ago. And as way to keep your day-to-day family motoring affordable at a time when so many electric and electrified options seem so much pricier than they once were, it may perhaps be rivalled by only the Dacia Duster or Jogger.

But there is still a value compromise to stomach here, though it's perhaps a lesser one than MG proposed five years ago. The ZS evades at least some signs of cheapness in its cabin decor and digital technology, but not all. And though it's quite strong on its performance, it does lack refinement and good ride and handling manners of the kind that paying a little more to buy say, a Renault, Toyota or Nissan would get you.

For those for whom a passable driving experience is enough, though, it earns its place.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Tesla Roadster, Ariel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren Senna, Renault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.